Javid tells unvaccinated carers, ‘get another job’

Health and social care secretary Sajid Javid has said carers refusing vaccination should “get another job”.

This follows yesterday’s announcement that from November 11 any staff or visiting professionals entering a care home will need to provide evidence of their COVID-19 vaccination or exemption status.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme this morning, Mr Javid said, “What I do not accept is the slowing down of the requirement to be vaccinated if you are a care worker as a condition of deployment. I don’t accept that at all. If you want to work in a care home, you are working with some of the most vulnerable people in our country. And if you can’t be bothered to go and get vaccinated, then get out and go and get another job”.

He went on: “If you are not going to get vaccinated why are you working in care?”

He explained: “If you step back a bit, and you think about your elderly relatives, loved ones that you have in care homes, and the idea that someone wants to look after them and they don’t want to take a perfectly safe and effective vaccine, that has been approved by our regulators, and used all over the world because somehow they have got some objection to this vaccine, then really, honestly, they shouldn’t be in our care homes. They should go and get another job. I am quite clear on that”.

Confronting the idea that this policy might lead to a shortage of carers, the Health secretary said, “We are working closely with the sector on this. There are other people, there is workforce training, there is other spending that we are putting forward”.